How do we Keep the Sabbath?

The Sabbath is and always has been the real test Commandment (cf. Exodus 16). Many can accept the other nine but the fourth Commandment is quite different. It means living differently from the society around you, perhaps even being looked upon as odd or weird.

Yet Jesus said in Luke 14:26-27, “Those who come to me cannot be my disciples unless they love me more than they love father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and themselves as well.”

Does this mean giving up some personal activity on the Sabbath?

The answer lies in what your conscience tells you and what the Holy Spirit lays upon your heart. The main consideration is the rest our bodies and minds need and the most beautiful part is that it is a day that we devote entirely to God, i.e. in everything we do, God should be an intrinsic part.

How spending one day a week with God who we claim to love could ever be called legalism or a burden is beyond me. Our relationship with Jesus is supposed to be one of faith and trust believing He will always provide our needs when we trust and obey Him. The sacrifice of moving an activity to another day is nothing in comparison to what Jesus did for us in His sacrifice. He was beaten, scourged and nailed to a cross for us. If the only thing that He asks in return is to keep the Sabbath holy then I think our sacrifice is no comparison.

“For this is the love of God, that we keep his Commandments: and his Commandments are not grievous.” 1 John 5:3

God wrote and spoke these words in the fourth Commandment, “But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your manservant, nor your maidservant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates” Exodus 20:10. So you are not to do any kind of real work on the Sabbath be it your occupation, personal business, housework or any laborious activity. And neither are those in the environment over which you have control. Of course, preparing or cleaning up after a light meal would not be wrong as we find a number of occasions when Jesus enjoyed a Sabbath meal with others. And He never condemned the practice of hospitality on the Sabbath (cf. Luke 14:1-6). Since Jesus said in Matthew 12:10-12 “…it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath”, such as rescuing an animal or healing the sick, that would no doubt include Essential Services such as Doctors, Nurses and Ambulance etc.

Finally, to really understand how God intended the Sabbath to be used, look at what He said in Isaiah 58:13-14 “If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on My holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight...not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words, then you shall delight yourself in the Lord; and I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth…”

So we should not think of the Sabbath as the day we can’t do this or that! Rather, we should approach this very special day as a period when we can and should really take time to deeply study and thoughtfully analyse the scriptures. It is a time when we can sit quietly, meditating over and thinking through the truly big issues of life.

In addition, the Sabbath is the perfect time for unhurried, thoughtful, heartfelt prayer to our Father in heaven to commune with our Creator, to worship Him, to get to know Him intimately. This is how to keep God’s Sabbath holy.